Dear Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment,

Sir Peter Gluckman (2011) has noted that ‘steps need to be taken early on to ensure that the scientific advice is:
• focused on the data and its appropriate interpretation;
• unbiased with respect to its use of data;
• open about what is known and not known;
• able to communicate in terms of probabilities and magnitude of effect;
• free from conflicts of interest, provided apolitically and independent of any particular end-user perspective.'
(OPMCSA, 2011, Towards better use of evidence in policy formation: a discussion paper).

The public have been told:
'A technical advisory group of 12 scientists and researchers will also support the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment on gene technology regulation procedures and technical matters, aiming to ensure officials' interpretation of the relevant science is accurate and risks and opportunities clearly understood.'
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/524...

'The Technical Advisory Group provides technical advice to MBIE on up-to-date gene technology regulation, including regulatory procedures and science and technical matters related to biotechnology, genetic techniques and gene therapies.

The Technical Advisory Group ensures that officials’ 'interpretation of relevant science is accurate, that opportunities and risks are clearly understood and that technical considerations are effectively incorporated into policy development.'
https://www.mbie.govt.nz/science-and-tec...

OIA REQUEST

[1] Please supply the terms of reference sent to the technical focus group. This is to confirm that there are systems in place to ensure that the information is free of bias and that there are protocols to ensure that the technical focus group have powers and resources to review and consider probabilities, risks, uncertainties and magnitude of likely impact outside the information sent to them by them, so that science advice is independently provided.

[2] Please supply all scientific information, including that which is listed in policy papers, including references and appendices, sent to the technical focus group.

This necessarily includes advice regarding the FSANZ proposals to change the definition of a GMO and remove process-based risk assessment. Obviously, the FSANZ outcome will impact the risk environment i.e. scientific and technical considerations of risk in relation to New Zealand’s native species and agricultural production and export. (Officials are aware the FSANZ work is in parallel with, and relevant to, MBIE's current consultation.)

[3] This question concerns the extent to which the technical focus group can consider uncertainty and future risks, and the extent to which MBIE have provided them with existing policy documents.

As science advisors, the technical advisory group will be considering future biosecurity risk, including genetic pollution. MBIE plans to create legislation which permits genetically edited organisms to be released into ecosystems (from a microbiomes, toto pasture, water-courses, and native forests) that with no boundaries, that are complex, linear and dynamic.

To quote Peter Gluckman ‘Precision is not the outcome, rather an assessment of probabilities’… There can be a danger of scientists claiming greater certainty than can be justified. Scientific advice must proceed through processes that are cognisant of, and act to limit, such potential distortions.’

New gene editing techniques such as CRISPR-Cas have accelerated development speed and shortened the bench-to-market timeline. Scientists are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) to identify development opportunities in whatever genome scientists want to work with – from mammals, to fish to insects and microbes. Gene editing can also be conducted in the outdoors, and removal of process-based risk assessment and potential exclusion of up to 94% of GMO foods as not GMO for the purposes of risk assessment (Bohle, Schneider, Mundorf et al 2024), not only will result in more development in New Zealand (including from offshore developers seeking permissive regulatory jurisdictions) but more releases in New Zealand.

(For references please see this document: https://psgr.org.nz/stewarding-biotechno...)

As the Royal Commission in 2001 advised, navigation over the longer term involves establishing principles and institutions to support the changing risk environment.
https://environment.govt.nz/assets/Publi...

Attorney General Judith Collins and MBIE allegedly desire to remove the precaution from the legislation and have not appeared to have taken the findings of the Royal Commission into account. There has been no policy paper reasoning considering the risks/benefits of insertion of precaution and/or precautionary principle in legislation text (or removal) would better serve New Zealand culturally, economically and environmentally. New Zealand is a signatory to the many treaties which also require consideration of the precautionary principle.

The technical advisory group must be interested in stewardship/kaitiakitanga over the longer term (see Boston, Bagnall and Barry, 2019, Joseph, 2021, Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi). For the regulator to have foresight and understand risk into the future - not just present risk, the technical advisory group may be considering former Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Jan Wrights' criteria:
- irreversible
- cumulative – building up over time
- large in scale or pervasive
- increasing or even accelerating in scale and/or distribution
- likely to tip a natural system over a threshold into another state

a. Please supply all meetings/memos/email discussions with the technical focus group with regards to how scientific uncertainty will be managed and how future risk from the scaling up of releases into the is scientifically, culturally and politically justifiable.

Please include all meetings/memos/email discussions with the technical focus group referencing precaution and/or the precautionary principle; and the findings of the Royal Commission and work by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

Discussions around uncertainty and precaution may include the potential for gene edited organisms to have changes to the genome but not be classed as not-GMO as regulators class them as comparable to conventional bred organisms, and how uncertainties relating to risk and contamination in future has been scientifically assessed and communicated by the technical focus group.

b. The technical focus group will presumably be interested in there being sufficient regulatory powers to surveil and assess the changing risk environment, so as to protect health, the economy and the environment. Please supply all discussions with the technical focus group concerning proposed powers for the regulator.

This may include the potential powers to monitor the published scientific literature and surveil the global environment (for newly identified risks from off-target and unanticipated impacts from GMO development and release, regulatory changes, court decisions), and monitor and assess releases into the environment for the long term.

[4] Please supply 'up to date gene regulation' information on how regulations in the top performing OECD nations and the latest decisions by the European Parliament compare against Australia and the proposed hybrid regulations, that have been sent to the technical expert group for assessment.
For example: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/doc...

Thank you,

Sincerely,

Jodie Bruning.